


Worth the War

by sapph_trash



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Boys In Love, Comfort/Angst, Dorks in Love, Idiots in Love, Love, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Multi, Teen Angst, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 15:10:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12820215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapph_trash/pseuds/sapph_trash
Summary: Post-war, the paladins are on a resort, having fun. However Keith notices Lance hasn't come to the pool yet and sets off to find him with the knowledge that Lance is upset.





	Worth the War

**Author's Note:**

> Just a cute klance fic post-war :)

Tiny speckles of water danced on my bare feet as I touched the blue-green dazzling pool with his toes. The water was cold like the barren darkness of outer space. I could say that, because I was Keith Kogane, and well, because I was the black paladin of Voltron, and I piloted not one, but two lions in the war.

It’s been five years since that last battle against Zarkon; against Haggar; against Lotor and his gang. I still couldn’t believe it, could still feel the unending loneliness I was prone to during my time in space.

Then again, my life had always been lonely. My mother left me when I was a child. My dad was no longer around, and I tried not to let it bother me, but it was deeply rooted: the anguish and anger,

A hand brushed against my bare back; warmth, soft, but it was a rough. I shifted my head and found Hunk standing beside me, looking at me with some sort of amusement on his flushed and tanned face.

“Are you gonna get in?” Hunk said, laughter evident in his voice. “Or are you just gonna stand there like a scaredy-cat. I guess Lance was always right about that, about you being a coward and all…”

His words became muffled after Lance. That name… my heart jumped at it, at the thought of him. Where was Lance anyway? He was usually the first one to dive into the pool. I remembered that because Lance was always the one who pushed me into the pool. It was true that I was a scaredy-cat, as Hunk put it.

I blinked at Hunk, unable to comprehend anything besides Lance… Lance… Lance…because it was strange, and so unlike Lance, and it was beginning to worry me.

Hunk finally understood why I wasn’t responding. “Oh,” he said. His eyes were soft, as was his smile. “He’s in your guys’ room.”

I nodded his head and, without another word, scampered off to find Lance.

I’d left early this morning to do some training, but I expected him to be in the pool when I arrived. It was… unnerving.

“Keith,” Hunk called out. I stilled my hastened pace. “Lance wasn’t really feeling that well… the last time I saw him.”

Oh. Oh. I understood now what was taking him so long, though it angered me, and my original pace became quicker, quicker than the dash of a cheetah, of the soar of a hummingbird in the direction of his fallen child.

The view around me was meant to be beautiful. It was, in a sense, with the sky-scraping buildings looming over me with blue-green and orange prints. The white gravel extended its path further enough into the distance that it disappeared into a misty-shadowed haze. Palm trees lilted the path beside me. The sun glared through the crevices in between the rocky dark brown branches. Luckily enough, I was wearing my sunglasses, and I saw the world in dark shadows instead of light. I guess that’s how it’s always been like.

However, it all seemed too artificial. Here we were, us paladins, enjoying our time in this earthly resort off the coast of Thailand when this exact time, five summers ago, we would’ve been battling some Zarkon ship or eating that green-goo slime for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks and desert.

I scampered through the glass sliding doors of the hotel. Cold wind rushed against my bare chest and back, and I shivered. Why hadn’t I brought my towel? I guess I hurried to find Lance.

“Have a nice swim?” the receptionist asked me with a bright smile on her face. She was pretty, I guess, with her luscious chestnut hair and wide blue eyes, but I wasn’t into girls. She was probably dating someone already, anyway.

I ignored the lady and clicked the up button of the elevator furiously. When the elevator didn’t come through after a couple agonizing moments of waiting, I sighed and kicked the elevator. Pain seared through my foot, but I was too far gone to my worry and frustration to really feel it.

“Kicking it won’t make it go down faster,” the lady said snarkily with her broken English accent.

I ignored her once again. The elevator finally dinged, and I was so relieved I thought I was going to cry.

The wait up was agonising. I didn’t want to be separated any longer. I remember that time after the war when we got to go home. Lance was so happy to see his family again, but I… cried. The paladins had become my family. I had nobody to go back to. All that awaited me was the unending loneliness in that small hut in the middle of the Texan desert.

When we arrived at the garrison, Lance’s whole family had come to greet him back, but Lance saw me. I tried concealing it, my tears, but he saw through it, and he comforted me. His family was out there, the people he had always spoken about in those times we had spare time to be together, but he stayed with me.

What he had said that day still burned in me, burned like that time I spilled boiling water on myself. Lance was there too, and he helped me then as well.

“In this waking nightmare, you were there, and you helped me,” he had said, his warm hands holding my flushed face. Tears caressed my cheeks, caressed his calloused hands. “Let me help you.”

I stood there with sobs racking through my wobbling mouth, my wobbling eyes, my wobbling body. He stood with me, waiting patiently, until I was able to respond.

“How?” I had said.

He smiled that dazzling smile of his. Stars may have danced in the searing dark space, but he was the brightest thing I saw. “Stay with me.”

So I stayed with him. To this day, we’ve been together, and it physically hurt me that he was hurting right now, when he didn’t deserve any pain. Not one single tear.

The elevator finally dinged open. I rushed out, rushed to through the unending halls of dark russet carpet and white walls. When I stumbled upon the door to our suite, I cursed at myself when I realised I had left the key card back at the pool.

Instead I knocked on the door with all my force and yelled to Lance. “Open the door, man. C’mon.”

The lock clicked. The door hinged open, but as soon as I swept into our room, he was gone. My heart thumped at the display. It was messier than before I left. Shorts and towels were strewn over the queen-sized bed, messy and uncleaned, and there was some sort of clear liquid on the carpet that I hastily stepped over.

I heard sniffled come from the bathroom. A frown etched onto my face as I approached the door to the toilet.

Knocking, I shakily asked, “Lance? Could you open the door? Please?”

There was silence. He wasn’t like this before I left? Though, I’ll admit, he wasn’t acting exactly like himself. There was something wrong, but when I asked him about it, he brushed me off.

I’m so stupid. I should’ve pressured him further. Maybe then we could’ve worked it out and he wouldn’t have started to cry.

The door finally unlocked. I opened it and stepped through. Surprise filtered through me at the similar state of the bathroom to the bedroom. Gel was open on top of the sink, something Lance never did and scolded me for doing.

I found Lance sliding down to the ground and bringing his head to curl up against his legs. Sniffles still bounced off the walls.

Crouching in front of Lance, I took his shaky hands in mine and murmured to him, gently, softly, “Hey, what happened.” I tugged his hands. “Come ‘ere.”

He broke from his curled position and laid his head to rest on my chest. Tears dripped onto my skin, warmer and more terrifying than the cold waters of the pool.

“I’m sorry,” he said. His lips wobbled against my skin. “I’m so sorry.”

I shook my head. “What’s wrong? …Babe?”

There was silence. Only his quiet sniffled were heard, but then he finally spoke. What he said broke my heart. “I’m sorry that… you know… I’m not what you… what you could have. That I’m not attractive, or… or muscular… that I’m skinny and too tanned… and too obnoxious, and annoying, and not romantic… and just… the worst boyfriend ever.”

I pressed my hands against his brown hair, gently curling my fists into it.

“You’re not,” I said simply.

He shook his head. “I–I am. Don’t lie to me just cause we’re dating, and you’re meant to tell me you love me and you find me hot when it’s all probably just one big lie.”

This time anger rushed through me. What made him think that? Was it something I said, or did? This wasn’t the time to find insecurities in myself.

Lance continued to degrade himself. “I act like I’m so confident, and cheerful, but you know what, Keith?” He angled his head to look up at me, his wide cobalt eyes drowning in tears. “I’m broken, and I’m dying inside. I’m just… lost.”

My eyes shuttered closed. If he spoke any longer… I’d cry myself.

‘Shut up,” I said.

“What?” He hiccupped.

Rage blinded me. “All this crap about being broken? Being unattractive? It’s all wrong.” Lance opened his mouth, but I shook my head and pushed him off me. “I’m in love with you okay? Don’t tell me my love is a lie. It isn’t.”

“But I’m not worthy of your love. I don’t deserve anything.”

“To hell with that,” I hissed. “Stars and milky ways are in the same galaxy and they look so different but they are both magnificent in their own way. Just because you think someone is better than you, doesn’t mean you aren’t everything I need and want.”

Would this boy ever get it? I’d be lost without him. There’s never a promise of forever and that’s okay. I just have to remember. Right now, what I have and what I do does matter. I can’t let him keep thinking this way, for however long he’s thought it.

“Do you understand? When I look at you, I see stars. I see fires. I see… the way that you shine so bright.”

Lance covered his face with his hands. His ruffled hair gleamed under the high-beaming light of the bathroom lamp. “Why does it hurt so much, then? This love?”

“All beautiful things hurt.” 

I shuffled closer to him and took his hands in mine, guiding it to my face. Both hands held my cheeks. Lance’s eyes sparkled at the familiar gesture, at what he did that day at the garrison. How he had offered me a home with him.

“I will always hold you in my heart. You are the dearest thing to me, okay? I love you.”

I brought my face closer to him and shut my eyes as my lips touched his warm one. Desire rushed through me as I pecked him for a few moments. I had caressed these lips so many times it felt like a second nature.

When I pulled back, Lance’s eyes were different than before: brighter and happier. I smiled in relief. He smiled in thanks.

“Well,” I said. “We should probably get to the pool before they think we’re doing something else.”

Lance laughed. That sound made my heart leap, so much that I barely minded when Lance slapped my behind when he finally rose from the ground. I yelped at him… even though life was a mess, he made it worth it.

He was always worth it. Worth the war, the deaths, the sacrifices. To be able to be with him? I’d tear the world down.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it! :) 
> 
> Tell me what you think.


End file.
